Further rules thoughts

Here's a development of my earlier thoughts - its like a combination of the keyword idea from Adventures in Space, with the "incremental actions" of Seven Leagues

Actions are used to resolve conflicts, either against a task or an npc… actions accumulate dice.

The player uses one of his keywords in a logical fashion to describe an action geared towards solving this conflict.. it can be as simple as “I wave my sword”, (if sword is a keyword”) ……… or “I nimbly dodge out of the way” (if nimble is a keyword)

The player then rolls one dice, though maybe if he has used his keyword in an especially creative fashion the GM may allow him to roll two dice:

- on a 2-5 he keeps the dice as his “pool”

- on a 6 he gets an additional dice to his pool (so he now has two dice) and he (or the GM) describes how the action was especially successful (“you wave your sword so wildly it flies out of your hand and hits the troll in the eye”)

- on a 1 he loses the dice and the gm describes why the action was not successful… (“you wave your sword so wildly it flies out of your hand into the pond”).

The GM then describes a suitable action for the NPC or task and rolls a dice similarly to try to create a pool.

Then the player describes a different action , and rolls a dice again ....

Players and GM contiue to alternate back and forth - both sides are trying to accumulate a dice pool to eventually resolve the conflict… when either the player or GM have at least three dice in their pool they may call out "Time!" to resolve the conflict, all sides roll dice, highest wins..

But Players (and GM) don’t have to roll dice as soon as they get three, they may decide to hold off and continue to try to build their pool ..

If a side runs out of ideas for using their keywords, they can still perform actions but they don’t get any dice, in essence, the actions are entertaining but don’t help: Player: “Ummm.. I try to climb a tree”…. GM: “fine, you’re clambering up the tree, the troll uses his strength to uproot the tree from the ground”

The GM could reserve the right to award a dice for something extremely inventive & imaginative, even if the pc doesn’t have the keyword..

Alternatively, there could be keyword actions and non-keyword actions . Non-keyword actions fail on a 1-3, suceed on a 4-6 , and don't get an extra dice on a '6'.